of their gdp on defense, but that s merely a guideline, and there s no penalty, actually, for not meeting that target. it s kind of an importance suggestion, if you will. in fact, only five nations, including the u.s., actually spend at least 2%. that s because it s problematic for some economies. for example, many european countries still face budget cuts from austerity programs. and even the way it is written, the way it is organized, they don t want you to spend any money for the sake of spending money also. they want strategic spending. right. so, it s not just as easy as saying pay more, although many of the countries, as you point out, have been slowly increasing their budgets. and from what we ve heard, we don t get to see the presentations there at the nato meetings, but we have heard they are presenting the message in graphics, showing we are ramping up spending, so perhaps a big win for the president, any sort of increase. all right, ahead, the secretary of state head
yeah. by international law, that money has to go into building schools and hospitals in africa, in the poorest parts of the world, and right now what we ve seen the pope do in his speech is actually follow up on specific policy recommendations he s made that are moving forward, both at the united nations and to some extent at the international monetary fund in congress. this pope actually called for the development of a global bankruptcy process at the united nations. he alluded to it yesterday and he said this is a necessity if we want to stop austerity programs in greece, if we want to build an economy that leaves no one behind. eric lacompt, thank you very much for weighing in on those things that are clearly important to the pope and to the global economy and to the poor around the world. we appreciate your insights. to all of you looking to the left of the screen, you are seeing the pope who has left the residence there on the upper east side. he is supposed to be going to
the fameous british manners have been elbowed aside by attacks. you are frankly lying. in one of the tightest elections in memory with politicians and their proxies under fire. tony blair can go to hell. all right? why do americans care? start with prime minister david cameron. pray for conservatives. that s the way to keep moving forward. he has been a reliable partner here. but his conservative party is under pressure there over austerity programs. he has agreed to a vote on leaving the european union. that could hurt u.s. trade, destabilize markets and weaken the worldwide economic recovery. a man prides himself on standing up to u.s. influence. the power to make britain work for working people once again. he has vowed a government under his labor party would fight isis he has shown little interest in supporting u.s.
debate are blocking this thing and my concern is that they ll probably continue to do so this year. you know maria, this struck my attention because some on the right are saying republicans should take credit for the economic recovery. the new york times says anti-tax crusader grover norquist, quote, may well have heralded a republican shift on the economy. he credited the budding revival to the party s austerity push. [ laughter ] he wants republicans to take credit for improving the economy. i mean does that sound right to you, maria? these are the same folks, let s look at where austerity programs are working. they re not. when the united states and europe were feeling the same economic crunch the united states decided with the leadership of president obama, to invest in the stimulus. and he said that was the only way that we were going to get out of this recovery basically having the federal government invest invest invest.
brenda? and will we benefit? here s the deal. it s all very well and good to say and i wish, and we will infuse the world economy by 2% or $2 trillion. i would like to look like jennifer aniston. i don t have that chance. i don t think this is going anywhere, either. it s just a statement. it says we re going to increase the world economy, but at in the point they have no road map to getting there. so all these countries can talk and throw out numbers, and no one is willing to put up the money? it s not so much the money. it s going to be government policy. the next step is that every country will come up with a plan to how they re going to grow their economies. of course, they want to grow their economies anyway, but we see so many different challenges. high unemployment here, a lot of spending, austerity programs in europe. china is slowing down. we face a lot of headwinds for